


desert bluebells and forget-me-nots

by Yuisaki



Series: adventures at desert rose [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Drunken Shenanigans, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith is a witch, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Witch AU, i can believe that's a tag, i can't believe that's a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13187487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuisaki/pseuds/Yuisaki
Summary: In the low light, Lance’s eyes really are such a pretty blue.A cross between desert bluebells,Keith thinks,and forget-me-nots.***Keith is the only herbalist for his small potions shop, up until Lance joins as the new employee. It's fine. Everything is completely fine.





	desert bluebells and forget-me-nots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bwyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/gifts).



> yes, i'm your secret santa you bwynchfucker. yes, this is the fic i wrote 24k for when the upper limit was 3k. yes, this has an accompanying [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/ohmallie/playlist/2crS2iWydgE4FXt6b4U8YA) playlist from [peverly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkmateslash/pseuds/checkmateslash). anyways, i love you lots bwynnie and i was low-key stressing out about having you as my ss recipient bc ur actually a writer i look up to a lot but i'm pretty satisfied with how this came out, so i hope you'll like these gays even if ur south park trash now. love you, you birdfucker!!! <3

There’s something entrancing about brewing potions, and it’s not the magic involved. Instead, Keith thinks it’s the rhythm of it: flicks of the wrist, hisses and pops of a brew gone just right, the repetitive chopping and crushing and chanting made fluid with practice. Most mythfolk think brewing potions is easy. It doesn’t require strong connections to the spirits, or at least as much as spellcasting or runecrafting.

But power is just that: power. It’s pouring in as much energy into the connection that a witch worth their salt has to offer, and hoping to the gods that the spirits will take mercy to give magic back.  And spellcasting is _boring._ Monotonous. Dull. It’s harder to hone technique — to master the timing of the brewing down to nanoseconds, to wrangle the right degree of heat from the fire spirits without having to reference a thermometer, to learn how to coax the earth spirits to make the herbs grow into the perfect size in the perfect moment.

_Spellcasters use the spirits to fight,_ Thace had always said. _But it’s not the spirits that make you a witch._

And that — that, Keith can never understand. Herbalists use technique. Spellcasters use power.

But at the end of the day, they still use _spirits._ A person is dead when their brain is; a witch is dead when their spirit mark is. Herbalists, spellcasters. Witches are all the same breed, made from the same core, the same _mark._

Spirits, spirits. What would a witch be without them?

***

_Whoever said witches weren’t day people,_ Keith thinks as he trudges over to unlock the shop door, _was fucking right._

Bottling his cooled potions for restocking, navigating the store under charm-lit lights to flip the sign, or even scratching out the sale of the day on the mini chalkboard against the window, is manageable in the evening. In the morning? Veritable cause for murder.

It’s not that Keith hates getting up for his job. He loves everything about it: the responsibility of running the store on his own, the conversations with the plants he grows himself, the quiet that lingers between the departure of satisfied customers.

It’s just… getting up in the morning.

When Keith was in college, all he had to do was roll out of bed five minutes before class, brush his teeth, slap his face with water a few times, and sprint out the door. Now he has an entire _schedule_ , and it begins at the ass hour of six a.m.

Having responsibility and ownership over the store of his dreams? Yeah, alright. Having responsibility and ownership over himself? Dicey at best; cause for hours of drunken ranting on Shiro’s couch at worst.

Keith finishes scrawling out the sale of the day and flips the chalkboard. He doesn’t even know why he still does it, given that pretty much every new customer has asked him what his chicken scratch/doctor’s note from hell/desperate student finishing an exam’s handwriting says. The old ones, who know better, just squint and guess or bypass it entirely since they like to haggle deals out of Keith on their own anyway.

But Shiro claims the chalkboard gives the store “credibility,” and while Keith also has no fucking clue why the aisles of assorted potions and rune-inscribed walls wouldn’t give that impression to begin with — whatever. He’s never been the more sociable one in the family, and writing the sale out doesn’t hurt in any case. Improved motor skills for potion brewing and all.

He sets the potions on the shelves and taps the rune on the wood to straighten out the bunch before making his way back to the counter. The dangling wintercreeper from the ceiling ruffles his hair in a fond hello, and so does the cheerful string of budding moonflowers. His asters, firevines, and yellow jasmines won’t even rouse until he waters them, the prissy assholes.

Speaking of which, he needs to do that. He summons water spirits to hydrate them all and strokes their leaves gently, watching as the plants sway in satisfaction, then that’s it for Keith’s morning routine. He flops onto his stool and leans his chin against his palm, exhausted already.

_Witches aren’t meant for mornings,_ he thinks darkly, tugging the brim of his floppy hat over his eyes. Hunk would say not all witches are like that, since he delights in waking at this cursed hour for some masochistic, screwy reason, but Keith maintains that it’s the nymph part of Hunk speaking and therefore doesn’t fucking count.

A blue glow against his eyelids makes Keith push the hat back up. Reminder rune, bobbing in angry figure eights: _brew the fucking translator potion for Allura you dumb dick._

The him of five hours ago — man. What a colossal douche.

With a groan that comes from the dismayed souls of his failed potions, Keith maneuvers his way over to cabinet to pull out his ingredients. It takes him a solid eternity to remember what he needs. Motherfuck, the morning.

Right. Seven drops of selkie-touched water, one strand of sphinx hair, a pound of ground helianthus leaves, two raw egg yolks, and some good old vodka. There are other variants of the potion, but this is the most effective version he’s ever brewed, plus — well. Vodka, sphinx hair, and raw egg yolks. He’s lying if he says he doesn’t find _some_ sense of amusement at the face Allura would make when she downs it.

Keith pours the vodka in and finishes off the remaining dregs before touching his spirit mark at the back of his neck. The spirit dimension is always harder to fall into when he’s tired, but years of being a practicing herbalist lets him coax an unruly fire spirit into the cauldron with ease.  

“In you go,” Keith murmurs to it. The fire spirit lets out a pleased sigh as it swirls around the potion, and he smiles. “A little bit higher, yeah? Just a few more degrees… Perfect.”

Keith watches it dunk under the potion. The whole cauldron lights up a shimmering violet from the crimson of his witchfire and the blue of the liquid. Just a couple hours for that to brew, and it’s all set.

It’s not until after he places the lid on top of the cauldron that he registers the creak of someone’s weight shifting on the floorboards. Shit. Shiro always did say he gets too invested in his brewing. He turns around and pushes his hat out of his eyes. “Sorry about that, welcome to Desert Rose, how can I…”

The morning.

Keith blames the morning for the few seconds it takes for him to register how stupidly attractive this customer is, because at any other time it would’ve hit him like fucking dragon. Just barely taller than Keith, he’s lean under his oversized jacket in a distinctively selkie or fey sort of way, and that’s not even mentioning the angles of his cheekbones. A scattering of black scales trails down from the sharp cut of his jawline to the planes of his wrist and who else knows where, and — his eyes.

Keith has brewed hundreds of magical potions in shades of blue, peered into the whirlpools of siren enchanted waters, and even walked among dancing water spirits, but none of them could ever match that shade.

That’s when Keith realizes he’s been staring. For a while.

He tears his eyes away, heat crawling up his cheeks, and spins on his heel back to the potion. Despite knowing it has a while to go, he still checks under the lid. The fire spirit wiggles playfully in the cauldron in response. Keith slams it shut, flushing harder. Damn spirits.

“Uh, so,” he says to the clattering lid, “what brings you to the shop?”

A pause, long enough that Keith starts wishing for a stray earth spirit to devour him bodily into the floor, and then the customer says, “Oh, you know.” Another short silence. “Just. Browsing, I guess.”

Keith tries not to deflate so visibly. “Right.” He faces the customer again, if only because Shiro’s nagging about customer service is beginning to echo in his ears like some vengeful high-maintenance soccer mom ghost. The rim of his hat falls into his eyes, and he doesn’t move it, instead focusing on the customer’s legs. Shit, those are some nice… jeans. “Do you have anything you need? I’ve got all sorts of potions here.”

“Yeah, I’ve looked around,” the customer replies. “You’ve got a pretty nice place going here. Really liked the sign on the window.”

“You can read it?” Keith blurts, jerking up. The abruptness of the action makes the hat fall to the ground, which is just the cherry on top of this clusterfuck of a situation since his hair is probably a greasy ponytail without the cover of his hat. Keith bites his tongue to refrain from saying any more dumb shit as he picks it up and puts it back on. “I mean, um. Thanks.”

God, this humiliation is going to _kill_ him.

That is, until the customer says, “Actually, I came here because I wanted to talk to you.”

Keith blinks. “What?”

“I mean, I already am, but uh, about. Other things.”

Keith tips the brim of his hat back to peer at the customer. “Such as?”

“Shiro sent me,” he starts, which is the _exact_ fucking moment Keith realizes he’s basically somehow signed the adoption papers of a small child he never knew existed until Shiro handed him the baby cradle, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, _Good luck._ “He thinks you might need an assistant? Or a part-time employee. Or full-time. He was vague about the details.”

“Did he tell you this on Tuesday?”

“Yeah,” the customer says, stretching the word out to five syllables, like _ye-a-a-a-ah_. “Is that a problem?”

“Horoscope told me Tuesday was going to be a bad day,” Keith mutters. “Nothing happened so I assumed it was going to hit me later. Now it’s hit me.”  
  
The guy’s face scrunches up like he’s in the midst of channeling a furious high-maintenance mom poltergeist with Gucci sunglasses, but before it can even form into a full frown, he takes deep breath and lets it out. “Alright,” he says, slow and deliberate. “I’ll just assume that you’re mad at Shiro and not me, or that your coffee tasted terrible this morning, because one, I don’t really have an urge to argue with a future employer this early in the morning, and two, I don’t think you’ve even seen my qualifications to be able to dismiss me this quickly. So can I just hand you my resumé and have you decide? Is that cool with you?”

After years of dealing with Allura’s ranting and Hunk’s teary, defensive responses to his words, this… isn’t what he’s expecting. “Uh,” Keith says, dumbfounded. “Well. Yeah. Sure.”

The guy hands him a manilla envelope — which, okay, professional — and rocks back on his heels expectantly. Keith takes out the resumé, scanning it. Lance Espinosa, twenty-two, birthday at the end of July. It doesn’t say what kind of mythfolk he is, which is intriguing but fine. As for work qualifications…

“You have a lot of experience in customer service,” Keith says, skimming across the long list. Bookstores, coffee shops, retail, even a short-stint as an assistant to some famous actor. “A wide variety of skills, too. Brush lettering?”

“For displays,” Lance explains. “It was a leg up on other hires, plus, you know. It’s pretty.”

Keith hums. “High resistance to cold and heat. Bad affinity to plants.” He raises an eyebrow at Lance. “And you want to work in an herbalist’s shop?”

“A challenge,” Lance says, shrugging. “I think this job could teach me a lot.”

A solid resumé, overall. Keith feels uncomfortable with even the thought of someone _needing_ a resumé — it’s a pretty low-key job and all — so it's not like he would _reject_ Lance as an applicant. It’s just… “I don’t think I need an extra pair of hands around here,” Keith says, placing the resumé back in the envelope. He hands it back to Lance, shrugging apologetically. “It’s not that hectic of a shop.”

Lance takes the resumé and scratches the back of the envelope, mouth tightening. “Shiro thought you might want to attract some more customers,” he says eventually, then pauses. “Uh, not that it’s lacking in sales or anything. Like. Um. Advertising.”

“Advertising,” Keith repeats. “Right.”

“Hey, man, if you don’t want me as an employee, I could be a helper. You know, take care of your morning coffee or write out the signs, restock the shelves, whatever. I promise I won’t get in your way.”

Again: the feeling of adopting a small child. “Why did Shiro even send you to me? He knows I don’t need help around here.”

Lance shifts, eyes falling to the red-potted hibiscus sitting on the windowsill. “He said you’d consider it, since, um. I need some money?”

“No one else is willing to hire?”

Lance winces, and the hibiscus scooches towards him to pat his hand in reassurance. “Yeah, uh. They were all full.” He stops, and all in a rush: “And I don’t have a place to stay for now, either, so they weren’t willing to give me payments in advance for rent, and turns out not many people want to take on a new worker asking for down payments.”

The feeling — the whole guilt, obligation, desire to be not such a dick — hits him stronger. “Right,” Keith sighs. “And Shiro thinks I’m not full here. What kind of mythfolk are you, anyway?”

“Technically I’m not allowed to tell,” Lance says. A gleam enters his eye. “But if you hire me, you could guess and I’d tell you if you were right.”

Empathy. What an awful thing. “Okay,” Keith says, and Lance’s head jerks up. “Alright. Fine. You’re hired.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yes,” Keith says. “I feel like I’m regretting it already, but for, shit, I don’t know, the next two months? You’ll help me around the shop. Do whatever I tell you. As for the rent issue — I have an extra room upstairs, if you want it.” Then he flushes. “I know that sounds really creepy, but it was just a spare room that’s like my storage closet now. You don’t have to use it if yo —“

Lance whoops, and the asters in the ceiling drops a lump of dirt on him in response. He looks up, where the asters are shaking in disapproval. “Oh. Sorry,” he whispers to them, and Keith has to bite down on a smile. Lance looks back to him. “Okay, I’ll be — man, I’ll be the best of all hires, alright? I’ll definitely have to take you up on that room. You want me to rewrite that display sign for you? I said it was a nice touch, but dude, you really can’t read it at all.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “You’re pushing it. But fine. Do your magic, you… selkie?”

“Nope!” Lance beams at him, and bounds off to rewrite the chalkboard. Keith sighs, turning to peek under the lid of the cauldron. In the bubbling green goop of the potion, the fire spirit pokes its head out and stares at him.

“I _know,”_ Keith grouses at it. The fire spirit continues staring at him. _Judging_ him. “I know, okay?”

It gazes at him for a moment longer, before slowly seeping back into the bubbling goop of the potion, radiating disapproval the entire way down without a fucking _face._

Keith slams the lid on the cauldron. Fire spirits. Screw them, honestly. This is going to work out fine.

***

It's not working out fine. Within the first day alone, Keith has had to extinguish five fires, soothed no less than six of his traumatized plants, and clean up the remains of nine potion spills. Considering Lance's hourly pay was pretty high to begin with, that's a lot of profit lost in _two hours_.

Keith pinches his nose after the fourth shatter of the day and sighs. "Sorry," he says to Shay, who tilts her head, rocky eyebrows grinding together. Another crash and muttered curse, and he blows out a harsh breath. "Yeah, okay, sorry, I'm just gonna — one sec —" 

"Yes," Shay says, bless her, and Keith bolts.

Of course, because for whatever fucking reason Keith seems to be _cursed_ without so much as a goddamn hex, he arrives at the storage closet to find a hot mess of broken potions. 

By hot mess — literally. The storage room is a steaming, hissing goop of distraught liquid. And Lance, not that those two are much different.

"How many," Keith says, resigned.

 Lance winces. "Um." A pained pause. "Ten."

Keith has to bounce a wind spirit between his hands for a solid minute before he can muster enough patience to speak somewhat rationally. "Okay. Ten." The number's not important, really. It's the content. "So which ones?"

"The, uh, blue one. Glimmering. Kinda funky smell."

"Mild paralysis. Okay. Next?"

"It was orange and sorta — alive? It's still trying to pick itself up and into the bottle over there."

That was four fucking wolf claw clippings — breathe. Breathe. "The animation potion. Next."

"Then I kinda — uh. I kinda fell, so there were a bunch of the luck potions that broke."

"How many."

"...Four."

"Mother _fuck_ —" Keith bursts out, and Lance cringes. Right. Okay. First day. Everyone has off days. It's fine. It's fine. Four luck potions, which accounts for about five pounds of carefully shaved cactus hairs, twelve phoenix feathers, and a liter of troll tears, but that's fine. He's seen worse days. "Okay. Great. Anything else?"

Hesitation, then in a rush: "One bottle of foxfire extract, some black substance that might've been tar but could also be the devil's shit, and then two of your. Um."

"Two of my what."

"Rejuvenation potions," Lance finishes meekly.

 Rejuvenation, otherwise known as the hell potion. He had to brew six of them in a row for his final potions exam in college, which was fucking great because rejuvenation potions are a bitch in the way they take out energy from the brewer. Six hours to brew each one, at least sixteen ingredients used depending on the version, and a whopping total of forty-two spirits to infuse into the potion. So that's what, twelve hours down the drain? Half a day of blood, sweat, and tears? Eighty-four spirits? Maybe ten pounds worth of ingredients?

_I've seen worse days,_ Keith has to remind himself. _There have been worse days._

But twelve hours. _Twelve._

Lance bears the weight of Keith's silence for a brave minute before he blurts out, "You still have a customer." Then he makes the mistake of glancing down at the steaming mess, and winces for what must be the fifth time today. "Uh, which is fine. I can take care of it. Customer service, you know, I can work with th —"

_"You,"_ Keith tells him sharply, "will stay here. Don't clean it up. Don't move. Just. Sit here. Sing a song. I don't care. Don't touch anything. If I hear one more crash while I'm dealing with a customer, you're — I don't even know. I don't care. Just don't touch anything. Are all you — hippocamps like this?"

"If they are, I wouldn’t know anything about it. And it’s not like I wasn't touching anything _before,_ the potions all just —" Keith cuts him off with a sharp stare. Lance shrinks. "Right. Okay. Not touching anything." 

"Thanks," Keith says, and heads out to help Shay. A much more manageable problem, he's sure.

***

By the time Shay has finished her transactions and left, ten minutes have passed and he hasn't heard so much as a peep from Lance. A highlight of the day. Miracles of miracles.

He steps into the storage closet to the sight of Lance slowly plucking out the glass in the potions and dropping it into a nearby bag. Oh, god.

"Don't do that," Keith says, and Lance jumps. A few potions wobble, and the fear of _death_ enters his eyes, but fortunately the potions stabilize and his shoulders slump in relief. Keith kneels down beside him and cocoons a wind spirit around his and Lance's hands, just to act as safety gloves. "It’s dangerous to touch mixed potions with your bare hands.”

“I have a high regeneration factor,” Lance mumbles. “I wasn’t really worried.”

“You say that now, but come back to me in three days when black tar is coursing through your veins.”

Lace jumps, and then stares in horror at his wrist.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Any residual poisoning you might’ve had, I got rid of it once you touched those wind spirits. You’re fine. And —” He stops before forging on, “And if you think I'm mad at you, I'm not.”

Lance squeezes his fingers, seemingly testing out the sensation of the wind spirits, before shrugging and continuing to pluck the glass from the mess. "You seemed like it. I mean, I'd be mad at me too. I fu — screwed up a lot today."

"Yeah, you fucked up a bit," Keith says, which earns him a faint smile. He tosses the last bit of glass in the bag, dismisses the wind spirits, and leans back. "But I probably fucked up more when my dad still owned this shop."

Lance looks up at that. "Your dad?"

Keith shrugs. "He owned the store and I probably broke fifteen potions on my first day. Not the greatest feeling."

"Is that a challenge? That's only five potions away, you know."

Keith snorts at that. "I said I wasn't mad at you for accidents. Trying to destroy the rest of my stock is a different story."

"Right."

Keith inspects him, eyes lingering on the black scales under his jaw. “Siren?”

Lance snorts. “Flattered, but no. But I’ve been told I have a great singing voice." 

Well, great. "For now, I'll let you handle the customers," Keith says, brushing his jeans off to stand. "You're not touching any potions for the next century, maybe, but there's nothing you've done to make me think you're terrible at talking to people."

"I think I can take that," Lance says, standing too. He casts another glance at the mess and winces. "Sorry though. Really sorry. Like, super sorry."

"I get it. Just — go. I'll clean this up." 

“Thanks,” Lance says, and darts off to the front of the store. Keith sighs and stares down at the bubbling puddle. Wonderful. Well, at least he has spirits to help him out. He snaps on the wind spirit gloves and gets to work.  

***

"How's your assistant?" Shiro asks, one week into the hire. Even without seeing him, Keith can tell there must be a shit-eating grin on Shiro's face, because he just has that _voice_. The #7 Shiro voice, otherwise known as _I Helped You Out and You Can't be Mad At Me For It, Haha, Fuck You._ "Is he making your job easier? Giving you a fun time? Lots of great conversations?"

"Fuck off," Keith growls, pounding the elderherb more forcefully than necessary. "You know exactly how it's going."

"Maybe I want to hear about how the shop is. No harm in that."

"You're a liar," Keith shoots back. He sets the pestle down and begins tearing the plant to pieces. "You just want to gloat."

"A 'thank you' certainly wouldn't go unappreciated." 

"Ugh," Keith says instead. "He made me lose a third of the day's profits in the first two hours alone, if that's what you want to hear."

A pause. "Ah," Shiro says.

But that's not true to Lance's performance in the store, if Keith's being honest with himself. He fiddles with the wind spirit for a moment before he sends it to hover over the cauldron. "I guess he's okay, though. Does well with customers."

"Ah," Shiro says, much more knowingly. An edge of _something_ — glee, superiority, satisfaction — seeps into his voice. Keith knows that voice. He doesn't trust it. "Is that so." 

"He's efficient. Children like him. People come in regularly to see the sale of the day now."

"I wonder why that is."

"If you called to say I told you so, then fuck off, thanks," Keith tells him, tossing the ingredients into the cauldron. The wind spirits bounce around the rim of the pot with a squeal before diving in and sending the herb mix into a flurry. He slams the lid on it and definitely doesn't imagine it's Shiro's face for a brief moment. "He's doing fine. Not that it has nothing to do with you."

"And how late are you getting up these days, hm?"

"...Eight." Turns out a bonus of having an extra worker in the store is — well, an extra worker in the store. Not always a six-to-nine job anymore, which is pretty fucking great. Plus, Lance cooks up a mean fucking omelette. What's not great is the fact that it's because of Shiro, who's probably gonna hold it over him for fucking centuries. He can _feel_ the amusement radiating off Shiro through the connection and scowls. "Do you have anything new to say?"

"Nope," Shiro says cheerfully. "That's it."

"You're so fucking annoying," Keith mutters, wiping the counter down with his water spirits. "The worst."

"Oh, sure, _I'm_ the worst for trying to check up on my cousin's shop — which I own half of —"

" _Legally —"_

"Half of," Shiro continues, steamrolling over him, "and seeing if he's getting enough rest from the new worker I recommended, in addition to checking up on my friend who happened to be in a bad spot a week ago. I'm the worst. Practically a criminal. The police should lock me up."

"You're the police," Keith says, rolling his eyes. "That joke stopped being funny the first time you said it."

"Like you don't say terrible plant jokes no one else gets. Anyway, Matt's telling me to get off the phone."

"At least Matt knows what he's fucking talking about, unlike someone."

"So you say, about a dryad who hasn't hydrated himself in four days." 

In the background, Matt's tinny voice yells, _"Dryads can go without water for two weeks, you creepdick!"_

Keith snorts. "According to Matt, he's fine. And you can't speak either. When was the last time you ate? I can hear your stomach growling from here."

A considerable pause. "Ah," Shiro says again. Another short silence, then: "Hey, do you think —"

"I'm not giving you a rejuvenating potion ever if I can help it," Keith says firmly. "Or a satisfaction potion, or anything that lets you get away with not taking care of yourself. I'm a witch, not your fucking nutritionist."

"What's the difference," Shiro says, but Keith can tell he's smiling. "Fine, fine. Remind me who's older again?"

"Fuck _off,"_ Keith snaps, dismissing the water spirits with an aggressive hand. " _Six_ years, and he treats me like a baby —" 

"You're two years old," Shiro says.

"Bye, Shiro," Keith says, and Shiro laughs all the way to the end of the call. What a dick.

***

Keith doesn’t mean to break out the rum, but December’s always been an awful, shitty, “grime underneath your shoe that you don’t notice until you’re halfway into your house and you can smell the footsteps behind you” month every year.  The onslaught of plague season and subsequent recovery potions, the looming date of the anniversary of his father’s death, and the new hire, which admittedly isn’t a huge problem but a worry nonetheless. Keith takes one look at the five-month-old rum in his cabinet and twists it open without a second thought.

The clinking of the glass against the counter must catch Lance’s attention, because footsteps make its way into the kitchen. “Keith?” A shadow passes over Keith, and he glances up to find Lance hovering by the doorway. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He knocks back a shot and sighs at the warmth trailing its way down. “Tired, is all.”

“Okay,” Lance says, giving him a soft smile. “Wanted to make sure you’re good. Then I’ll just…”

He gestures, sort of like a spazzing flamingo, and the rum must work quick because Keith stares at Lance’s retreating back for a second before he’s blurting, “Wanna join me?”

Lance pauses. Keith’s grip on the bottle tightens, and he glares down at it, angry at himself. Fuck, that was dumb. Now the coworker he’s going to spend the next however many months with is gonna think he’s an alcoholic weirdo —

“Yeah,” Lance says, and Keith’s head jerks up. Lance shoots him an easy grin and makes his way to the opposite chair. “Why not? Haven’t had some good rum in a while.”

“Oh, uh.” Keith gestures at the cupboards. “Grab a glass then.” Back down at the bottle. He wipes the lip with his sleeve hurriedly. “Maybe two.”

Lance laughs and returns soon with two glasses, sliding one across the table to Keith. “Here you go, then.”

Keith fills half of Lance’s glass, half of his, then pushes the bottle away. Lance swirls the rum and sips at it, humming. “That’s pretty good.”

“Walmart quality.”

“Well, fuck, that’s pretty good for Walmart.”

Keith smiles and toys with the glass.

“So, any particular reason why we’re getting wasted tonight?”

“I don’t normally do this,” Keith tells him. “Drinking, I mean. But it’s been a pretty shitty week so I thought I might as well.”

Lance stays silent. After a short pause, he says wryly, “I hope that wasn’t because of me.”

Keith blinks. What? Oh. “Oh! No.” Some of the tension vanishes from Lance’s shoulders, and Keith smiles at him. “No, you’re fine. The week was shitty, unrelated to you. You had nothing to do with it.” Then he frowns. “Except for my asters. That was pretty shitty, actually.”

“Ah… I’ll buy you a replacement?”

Keith waves it off. “Asters aren’t perennials. It was going to die soon regardless.”

“Oh. I’m sorry anyway?”

“But I need new aster seeds. The renewal potion…” He sighs and takes a long sip. “I’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“We can go shopping together. Uh, if you’re fine with it, that is.”

“More than fine,” Keith says, and laughs. In the low light, Lance’s eyes really are such a pretty blue. _A cross between desert bluebells,_ he thinks, _and forget-me-nots._

“So… we’re good, now?”

“Hm?”

Lance falters. “Nothing, I’m —” Then something changes in Lance’s expression, and he goes from hesitant to defiant in the space of a heartbeat. He squares his shoulders, meeting Keith’s gaze evenly. God. Those eyes. “You were staring,” he says. “If there’s something I did, can you tell me?”

“Oh,” Keith says, surprised. That was it? He considers it. “No, you’re fine. I was just thinking about your eyes.”

Lance blinks. “Mine?”

“Yours,” Keith confirms, and heat entirely separate from the alcohol floods his cheeks. “Uh. They sorta have the color of bluebells? The desert kind. And um, forget-me-nots.” Lance stares at him, lips parted. Keith’s flush deepens. “Uh, sorry. That was weird.”

Lance breaks out of whatever trance he was in to laugh. “No, it was just a surprise. But thanks.”

Keith buries his face in his sleeves. “You seem to be way more sober than I am,” he mumbles. That’s not fair.”

“Physiology,” Lance says, sounding like he’s muffling a laugh. “Alcohol doesn’t affect me too much.”

Keith peeks through his sleeves to glower at Lance. “You should’ve said that _before.”_

“Sorry, sorry.”

Silence descends on the conversation after that. Keith’s eyes start wandering around the apartment — anywhere _but_ Lance and this awful awkwardness — and eventually land on the bottle of rum again. A quarter of it is already gone, which leaves… the rest of it.

Keith thinks about it. Hangovers. It’s a bad idea. But also: not thinking.

Reaching for the bottle, he pours himself another glass and drains it. He shudders at the fire blazing its way down and sinks into his seat. That should be enough.

… But he’s still coherent enough to notice the awkwardness, which is _definitely_ not the fucking end goal here.

He grimaces and tips out another shot. Drains that, too. Pauses and watches the leaf-themed clock tick.

_One more_ , he thinks, going for the bottle —

“I’m legitimately fearful of you getting alcohol poisoning if you keep drinking that at the speed of God,” Lance cuts in, and Keith starts, blinking. Lance snorts at Keith’s expression and wiggles his fingers. “Hand me the bottle?”

Keith pushes it to the opposite side of the table, where Lance refills his glass and sets it aside, far from Keith’s reach. “Okay, so. Any particular reason why your week was so awful that you tried to drink yourself into a coma?”

“Not a _coma_ ,” Keith protests. “Maybe a…mild sleep.”

Lance grins. “Right. Mild sleep. Explain?”

“I don’t think I’m drunk enough for this,” Keith announces, then blinks. The world’s not _blurry,_ but it’s not in high definition either. “Never mind. I think I’m drunk.”

“You are,” Lance agrees with a smile, “definitely that.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry if this is gonna get really personal, but pickles exist. That’s fucking _awful_.”

“...That’s personal?”

“It is to me,” Keith says, indignant. “Also, my dad died a few years ago in December, and by a ‘few years’ I mean more like… ten. But it’s still pretty shitty.”

“Yeah,” Lance says, softer. “I’m sorry about that, man.”

"Fuck, that’s not even all. So, okay, I had this basil plant for three years, right? It might’ve been four. I don’t remember. But now it’s dying.” Keith’s eyes fall on the rum, and he frowns at it when he realizes how far away it is. “Hold on. Pour me a glass, I wanna get drunker.”

“In my opinion, I think you’re already plenty smashed.”

“Well, fuck your opinion,” Keith says impatiently, and calls the wind spirits to pass the bottle into his palm. It skids across the table, and Lance almost falls out of his chair, which is just the fucking funniest, especially considering he’s been in a witch’s house for two weeks already. Laughing, Keith points a finger up, and the bottle tips into the glass. Nice.

When he tries to pick up the glass, he forgets the bottle is still poised in the air, so the rum starts sloshing over the table and on his shirt.

He stares at it, then jerks. “Oh, shit.” He hurriedly dismisses the wind spirit holding the bottle and glances around for a rag before he realizes he’s a _witch._ “Oh my god, I’m dumb.”

“Okay, I’m trying to get over the air manipulation here, and you’re saying you’re d — _whoa what the fuck what are you doing.”_

Keith pauses, and the water spirits cleaning the table stop as well. “I’m… wiping the table? I spilled some rum.”

“Yeah, no, I _saw that,”_ Lance says, and Keith tilts his head. Lance waves frantically at the table. “What — how did you — where did that water even come from?”

“Spirits,” Keith says, confused. “Have you never met a witch before?”

“I’ve met you,” Lance says, which isn’t really an answer.

Keith grins. “Okay, wait, watch this.” He waves away the water spirit and feels out for fire — they’re harder to grasp, finickier and playful, but he manages to coax one to him, and his fingertips light up with flame.

Lance’s chair scrapes back. “Wha —“

Keith gestures down, and the spilled rum at the edge of the table _whooshes_ as the fire devours the alcohol into nothing. Lance yells, and Keith just laughs at his expression. “It’s fine,” he says over the fire. “Here, I’ll get rid of them —“

A flick of the hand, and the fire spirits leave him with an excited squeal. He smiles and picks up the white tablecloth for Lance. “See? It’s not burned.”

Lance’s eyes have gone wide. “What,” he says, slow and shocked, “the fuck.”

Keith picks up the glass and knocks it back. “Have you never seen a witch’s spirits?”

“I’ve… heard of them.”

“Witchfire isn’t like normal fire,” Keith explains. He dips into the connection in his mark, summoning one of the fire spirits again, and tosses the witchfire from palm to palm. “It’s why humans can’t make the potions, even if they have the fire and everything to brew it. Uh, witchfire can be manipulated to draw out magical properties of an ingredient or destroy it, if needed. So if I don’t want it to burn, it won’t” He fashions the fire into a ball then tugs, smiling as it expands in the air. “It’s a pretty neat trick.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s _weird.”_

“It’s pretty different from other mythfolk fire,” Keith agrees. “Like, phoenix fire? It can regenerate properties or completely turn it into ash, and it’s _so_ fucking hard to use. And uh, I don’t know much about foxfire, except that only foxes can use it and it has paralyzing elements. And dragonfire!”

Lance grins, gesturing at the fire that’s bobbing in the air beside his head. “Excited much?”

“Dude, do you _know_ how cool dragonfire is? It burns forever, unless the dragon who controls it or gave it to you wills otherwise. If witchfire and dragonfire were combined — oh my fucking god, I’m too drunk to explain how cool it would be, but the amount of potions I could create? Holy shit.”

Lance raises an eyebrow. “So how come you know so much about fire? You some pyromaniac?”

“I’m a fire-aligned witch,” Keith says, shrugging. Then he realizes Lance knows fuck-all about witches, and he hurries to extinguish his witchfire and pulls off his floppy hat. “Wait, come here, I’ll show you.”

“This isn’t going to be like the last time you said you’d show me something, right?”

“No, no, it’s, uh, my spirit mark.” Lance stops just a few feet away from him, and Keith pulls him closer, lifting his hair. “Here, it’s right…”

Keith can tell the moment when Lance finds it, because Lance’s breath stills. No two spirit marks are the same, and he’s been told that his is surprisingly artful, considering his personality — swooping curves and starlike freckles in the general shape of a rose. “Oh.”

Keith smiles at his hat. “Yeah. So my spirit mark glows red, because I’m fire-aligned. Shit, I’m really drunk, but basically it’s like, I use fire really well.”

Lance’s finger traces the curves of the spirit mark at the nape of his neck, and Keith shivers. His voice is quiet. “Did it hurt?”

“I…” Keith’s mouth is dry. “Witches get it when they’re born. I don’t remember.”

“That’s good.” Abruptly Lance pulls his hand away. “It’s late. We should go sleep.”

“Oh,” Keith says, then the meaning of Lance’s words sink in, and he hurries to put his hat back on. “Yeah, right. I forgot basilisks have early curfews.”

“Maybe that’d be true, if I was a basilisk.” Lance reaches around and tips the brim of Keith’s hat into his face. Keith clears it, scowling, and Lance’s blue eyes crinkle in laughter. Keith’s heart lurches in his chest.

“Night, Keith,” Lance calls, before disappearing into the hall.

“Night,” Keith hears himself echo, a beat too late.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [tumblr](yuisaki-drabbles.tumblr.com)!


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